Who are the Greens? Why do we run?

by Marnie Glickman Curtis2659.20pcon November 01, 2012

I’m voting for Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President of the United States. She is running for President to talk about another way, a Green way, to govern our country. I am proud of her activism and helped persuade her to run for President.

Dr. Jill Stein is a mother, physician, teacher and pioneering environmental health advocate. She graduated from both Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. Jill worked in Massachusetts on improving her state’s health policies and witnessed the ability of big money to stop good, progressive laws. She entered Green electoral politics to create a clean election law in the state. Jill twice ran for Governor of Massachusetts and even debated Mitt Romney on television.

Cheri Honkala, the Green Party’s vice presidential candidate, has been a leading advocate for the homeless for 25 years.

Cheri ran for Sheriff of Philadelphia in 2011. She is the first and only Sheriff candidate nationwide who pledged to stop home foreclosures by the big banks.

Cheri entered politics after she and her son became homeless after the car they had been living in was demolished by a drunk driver.

Cheri and Jill are campaigning across the country in solidarity with the Occupy movement, debt forgiveness movement and the union movement. Today, they were on the streets at the Occupy Wall Street 1st anniversary in New York City. Last week, Jill marched with striking teachers in Chicago.

Let me now introduce you to the Greens.

Greens believe that we are in the middle of two catastrophic crises that require immediate political action and non-violent civil disobedience.

Greens believe that climate change is the defining crisis of our generation. Nearly 200 species are going extinct every day. 80% of US farmland is now in drought. Extreme weather is increasing food prices and decreasing water supplies. Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, not decreasing.

Greens want to end the economic crisis in the United States. Nearly one in two Americans live in or near poverty. 25% of US children under 5 live in poverty, 42.7 % of black children and 36% of Latino children.

We are Greens, and not members of other political parties, because Greens have a unique approach to politics.

Greens are not satisfied with tinkering around the edges of our problems.

Greens believe we must have a political transformation in the United States.

Greens know that all of our problems are interconnected and the solutions must be interconnected too.

We share the Greens ten key values that are in our party’s platform:

Ecological wisdom

Grassroots democracy

Decentralization

Social justice

Economic justice

Non-violence

Feminism

Respect for diversity

Personal and global responsibility

Future focus

Greens are campaigning for a Green New Deal, an emergency program, to stop both the climate change crisis and the economic crisis.

We think it’s much better than the policies advocated by the Democratic and Republican Parties.

The Green New Deal is based on the New Deal that helped us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The Green New Deal can create 25 million durable, green, living wage jobs.

The Green New Deal reduces our military budget by at least 50%.

Greens support amending our Constitution to make clear that corporations are not persons and money is not speech.

Greens will replace big money control of elections with full public financing and free and equal access to the airwaves.

We will shift to an economy in which more than 80% of our electricity is generated renewably.

We will act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 95% by 2050.

We will end government subsidies and tax breaks for the fossil fuel, fracking, and nuclear industries.

Greens wage the politics of courage.

Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a redlight. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes through that red light, and normal traffic had better get out of its way. Or when a man is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed. There is a fire raging…for the poor of this society. Disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. They need brigades of ambulance drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved.”

Greens believe a fire is raging in the United States.

We register Green, vote Green and run as Green candidates because we need a brigade of ambulance drivers now in our country.

If we want to end the emergency, halt climate change and stop the crisis of poverty, we must choose non-violent civil disobedience.

Greens believe that the acts of registering Green, voting Green, and running Green are forms of non-violent disobedience.